Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah will come to Washington for a meeting with President Obama on Tuesday; there is little doubt that Iran will be a high-priority topic for discussion between the two leaders. Notwithstanding the extraordinary importance of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, it is striking how relatively few meetings there are between American presidents and Saudi kings. We can also testify, from our own experience in government, how poorly prepared those meetings often are on the American side.
The most glaring example of this, in our experience, was the first encounter between Abdullah and President George W. Bush, at Bush’s Crawford, TX ranch in April 2002. (At the time, Abdullah was still Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, but was acting in his capacity as the Kingdom’s de facto regent, a role he had discharged since King Fahd’s incapacitation in 1995.) Despite warnings from everyone in the U.S. government who knew anything about Saudi Arabia that Abdullah was coming to press President Bush over the Palestinian issue and the Bush Administration’s dismissive initial reaction to the Saudi peace initiative, then-national security adviser Condoleeza Rice confidently asserted that Abdullah would do no such thing. The result, in Crawford, was what one cabinet principal in attendance described later as a “near death experience”, with Abdullah on the verge of walking out of the meeting early. Our understanding is that President Obama’s meeting with King Abdullah in June 2009 was not a significant improvement on this paradigm.
Looking ahead to Tuesday, we are grateful that Thomas Lippman agreed to write a preview of the meeting between President Obama and King Abdullah for www.TheRaceForIran.com, and are pleased to publish his piece below. Tom is currently adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, see here. He had a distinguished 30-year career at the Washington Post, where he was, among other things, a diplomatic and national security correspondent, the oil correspondent, and Middle East bureau chief. He is the author of several books, including the highly acclaimed Inside the Mirage: America’s Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia, see here.
From Thomas W. Lippman:
It would have seemed peculiar if King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia traveled all the way to Toronto for the G-20 economic summit and did not stop in Washington on his way home. After all, President Obama made a point of stopping in Riyadh to see the king last June before going to Cairo for his famous speech about U.S. relations with the Muslim world and Abdullah has not visited the United States since Obama was inaugurated. The United States and Saudi Arabia have deep and durable relations in matters of security and trade, and each is in its own way indispensable to the other.
Still, it is hard to imagine that the White House session on Tuesday will produce any game-changing agreements because while the two countries generally share the same strategic objectives, each wants something that the other is unable or unwilling to deliver.
The Saudis want the United States to find some way short of war to halt Iran’s nuclear program, and they want Obama to deliver on his commitment to a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine question. The United States wants Saudi Arabia to do more—much more—to support Iraq, but the Saudis have made clear their reluctance to do that until a government to their liking, preferably led by Iyad Allawi, is installed in Baghdad.
At many past bilateral summits, the agenda included items on which prompt and visible action was possible—on oil production levels, for example, or defense of the kingdom against a possible invasion by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, or arms sales, or a crackdown on Islamic charities sending money out of Saudi Arabia to recipients of malign intent. That pattern extends back to the first such meeting, in 1945, between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, which among other things resulted in a Saudi declaration of war against the Axis powers. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, at his final meeting with Abdullah, committed the United States to support Saudi Arabia’s long-term plans to develop nuclear energy.
No such definitive agreement appears likely this time.
According to American officials, the most important subject on the agenda is the faltering effort to forge a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians based on the two-state solution. Obama has repeatedly stated a commitment to that objective—most recently after a meeting earlier this month with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas—and for a while after the Cairo speech the Saudis believed he would actually make something happen. They no longer believe, because in their view Obama backed down in the face of Israeli intransigence on his demand for a complete halt in settlement activity in the occupied territories.
They still prefer Obama to his predecessor, but their impatience and disillusionment were readily apparent in conversations with officials and analysts in Riyadh has month. The dissatisfaction was reflected in a stinging speech delivered to an audience of diplomats and journalists by Prince Turki Al Faisal, former ambassador to the United States, who said the United States has forfeited the “moral high ground” in the Middle East through “negligence, ignorance and arrogance.”
Turki said that if no agreement on the Palestine issue is reached by this fall, the United States should recognize an independent Palestinian state, just as it recognized an independent Jewish state in 1948, and leave Palestine and its neighbors to sort out their relations with Israel on their own.
Prince Turki holds no government position and it is not clear whether he was speaking for the government, but it is no secret that the king is in despair over the plight of the Palestinians, a sentiment augmented by the Gaza flotilla fiasco.
Obama’s relations with Abdullah got off to a rocky start in their Riyadh meeting a year ago when a poorly-briefed president asked the king for unilateral gestures of goodwill toward Israel, such as extending to Israeli aircraft the right to fly over Saudi air space. As was predictable, the king rebuffed the president; the Saudi position is that they crafted and persuaded the Arab League to endorse a comprehensive peace offer based on Israel’s return to its pre-1967 borders, and have no obligation to do more.
This time, according to U.S. officials, Obama is prepared to tell the king that he accepts the so-called Abdullah plan as a good faith offer that can be part of the negotiations with Israel. That is not an endorsement of the plan’s details, but it could be enough to persuade Abdullah to give the U.S. side what it will ask for: a public statement endorsing direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Given the Saudis’ cynicism about the “peace process,” that could be a useful symbolic gesture.
On Iran, the Saudis are like the Americans in that they know what they want but do not know how to achieve it. They want the Iranians to stop meddling in Iraq, stop supporting extremist groups and, most important, stop enriching uranium. They do not believe the latest round of economic sanctions will deter Iran, but they oppose military action by the United States—or, worse yet, Israel—to halt the nuclear program. Any such attack, they fear, would cause chaos in the Gulf and prompt Iran to strike at them as a way of inflicting pain on the United States.
Saudi Arabia did not oppose the latest U.N. sanctions—Foreign Minister Saud Al Faisal even went to Beijing to urge China to support them. But after a meeting in February with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Prince Saud said that “sanctions are a long term solution, but we see the issue in the shorter term, maybe because we are closer to the threats than that. So we need immediate resolution rather than gradual resolution in this regard.”
He did not specify what “immediate resolution” he had in mind. Nor could he have done so because, according to Saudi officials I talked to in Riyadh last month, no one has devised any “immediate resolution” short of the war the Saudis don’t want.
One gesture Obama could offer would be an endorsement of Saudi Arabia’s call for the creation of Middle East zone free of all weapons of mass destruction. The Saudis have long held that position and restated it at Obama’s recent nuclear security summit, and were furious when Secretary Clinton dismissed it as not timely. The tricky question for the president would be how to endorse the Saudi proposal without appearing critical of Israel, which has long had an undeclared nuclear arsenal.
Richard Hack,
Bravo. Panetta made clear Iran would need two years minimum to obtain materials to build the two nukes and a third to build them and develop the means to deliver them. And to do this would, as you mention, require in effect broadcasting to the entire world what was going on. Ahmadinejad said that if Iran wanted to build nukes, it would not conceal this intention from the world.
Much of the incessant media chatter about a supposed “threat” from Iran, is intended to distract the attention of the grossly ignorant American public from the oppression of the Palestinians by Israel, enabled day in and day out by stooge US politicians.
Bussed-in Basiji,
Sorry, I was under the impression you knew where Prince Bandar is, and were wondering if I knew. My understanding is that he is being detained in a Saudi facility.
James Canning
Come on answer the question, this is the second time you are trying to deflect. WHERE IS BANDAR? One day he is the head of the Saudi national security council the next day he is a missing person. Is he ill? Is he in jail? Is he on an extended holiday? Is he taking some time off to be with his family? He has simply vanished without any comment by anyone and any media questions. So James, I ask you again WHERE THE HELL IS BANDAR?
I’ve seen Panetta’s claim. And of course, all the news media refuse to mention that Iran would have to withdraw from the NPT, kick out the IAEA inspectors, and then spend quite a bit of time enriching to weapons grade (with centrifuges that have questionable ability to do that, if I’m not mistaken) all the while fighting off US air attacks.
It’s ridiculous, of course. But this merely underscores my point. The entire “crisis” has to be continually built up by deliberately misleading statements by the US and Israeli governments. How long can this go one when eventually it becomes clear to everyone that Iran does not and never did have a nuclear weapons development AND DEPLOYMENT program?
Sooner or later, somebody has to blink. That is the bottom line and it will not change until somebody does. Either the US AND Israel have to decide that Iran can enrich, OR one of those two has to make a move to stop Iran from enriching. There IS NO THIRD ALTERNATIVE. Unless of course Obama decides to make a grand bargain with Iran, for which Iran would consider suspending enrichment. This is virtually impossible given Obama’s stupidity, cluelessness, and being under the thumb of the Israel Lobby. So why bother to consider that third alternative?
“Cheer up, things could be worse. So I cheered up and sure enough, things got worse.” This is what we have to look forward to. Either somebody blinks, or we get a war. It’s that simple.
Bussed-in Basiji,
I assume you remember that Prince Bandar thought G W Bush had badly handled the issue of Israel/Palestine, and that this blundering by Bush put the peace of the Middle East at risk.
All you King Abdullah lovers,
WHERE IS PRINCE BANDAR BUSH? Come on fellas, have the guts to comment on the disappearance of Bandar bin Sultan. I promise I won’t tell your Saudi contacts.
Richard,
Have you seen today’s Wall Street Journal? An editorial claims Iran will have nukes within two years. This is in the wake of Panetta’s testimony that Iran theoretically has enough LEU to enrich further to build two nukes. But the editors prefer to frighten their readers and promote idiotic effort to repress Iran.
Alan,
Iraq has forbidden use of its airspace for an Israeli attack on Iran. But it would be the duty of the US to prevent such use.
Eric – re the airspace thing. I don’t think the original Obama “request” pertained to an Israeli attack on Iran at all, rather to simply normalising relations with Israel. The poor briefing was in the mere asking for any kind of normalisation following OCL, settlement expansion, US/Israeli disruption of Palestinian reconciliation, and Israeli stonewalling of the original Saudi peace plan. It was not for the Saudis to offer anything. Besides, Abdullah was probably missing the latest round of truck racing on the telly.
Regarding the Times piece, sadly said organ has a dismal track record for printing these kinds of unsourced, or at least unverifiably sourced pieces on this subject. I certainly don’t see an American hand in it. Apart from anything else, if the US were involved, and the Times says they are, Saudi Arabia need not be, because Israel could use Iraqi airspace. That would be far less risky for the US.
At this point, I still see the whole thing as a non-starter. The battle the US has here is keeping Israel quiet. Israel won’t attack Iran, but will ratchet up the pressure as far as they can on the US. The US needs to avoid being bounced into an escalation, and their diplomatic tactics will incorporate a certain rhetoric to appease Israel. But it seems to me a greater risk of war would arise from the wrong kind of government in Iran, and this seems to vex them the most – hence comments like “they haven’t made a decision on making nukes yet” or “there is an internal debate in Iran about it” etc etc.
On the issue of a possible Israeli and/or US attack on Iran, I reiterate my primary argument: unless one of these countries makes an attack on Iran within Obama’s term of office, the very concept of Iran developing nuclear weapons will become ludicrous and the entire “crisis” atmosphere will be unsustainable.
Do we then expect that this is how the U.S. military-industrial complex, and the Zionist fanatics in the Israeli government, are going to react? Just let Iran continue to enrich without anything more than criticism and pointless and ineffective “sanctions”?
Or is someone going to pull the trigger? The US and Israel CANNOT keep up the pretense of an “Iranian bomb” forever. Maybe it won’t happen in Obama’s term of office, perhaps he will fob the problem off on his successor (if it isn’t him at the end of his first term – which I think is quite likely) who may well be some Republican bozo like McCain or Palin. Does anybody think the line up of Republican nutcases they fielded in the last Presidential election won’t attack Iran either for yet another four or eight years – while the entire issue becomes an embarrassment to the entire Western world because there is no Iranian bomb?
I find this scenario hard to accept. I find it much more likely that some military action – which is then likely to escalate to a major disaster – is to occur by either the US or Israel. Particularly if Obama decides to de-escalate Afghanistan – where the US is clearly losing – and instead shift to an attack on Iran to re-establish his “tough on terror” stance in advance of the next Presidential election. The man is SO evidently clueless on foreign policy and military matters, and so under the thumb of the Pentagon, that once Afghanistan is wound down along with Iraq, that Iran will be the next military adventure. The U.S. foreign policy is now controlled entirely by the Pentagon, not the State Department, not to mention the military-industrial complex people who fund the entire U.S. Congress, so it’s hard for me to believe that another war is not in the offing once Iraq and Afghanistan are finally clearly seen to be a total waste of time by even the idiots in the American street.
Who’s Protecting U.S. Convoys, Supply Lines in Afghanistan?
By ROBERT BAER Robert Baer
.Measuring a quagmire is mostly guesswork. But a congressional report released last Monday, June 21, on the U.S.’s supply lines in Afghanistan comes close to putting at least one number on it: the $2.16 billion we pay a year to extortion rackets to protect U.S. truck convoys. What the problem comes down to is that in paying off Afghans to protect our supply lines, we have created a vast slush fund for bribery, extortion, heroin trafficking and murder. And it’s all but certain that some of the money ends up in the pockets of the Taliban. In other words, we’re paying for the bullets and bombs that kill our own soldiers.
The report, titled “Warlord, Inc.: Extortion and Corruption Across the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan,” is well worth reading in its entirety, if for no other reason than to get a glimpse of just how little ground we control in Afghanistan. For lack of troops and an absence of Afghan government authority, we’ve had no choice but to outsource security for 70% of our logistic lines to Afghans we know almost nothing about. For instance, the warlord in charge of security for supply convoys between Kabul and Kandahar apparently is known by only one name. He has connections to the Karzai family, but beyond that, he’s a mystery. He’s never been met by an American contracting officer, and his only meeting with any American officer was in a botched drug arrest. (He denies trafficking in narcotics.) Our ignorance about this man is all the more astonishing considering that the fate of any operation to retake Kandahar depends upon him. What if, in the middle of the battle, he joins the Taliban and cuts off supplies? (See how crime pays for the Taliban.)
What’s just as amazing is that the Administration understands the problem and has done nothing to correct it. In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last December, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bluntly put it this way: “One of the major sources of funding for the Taliban is the protection money.” (See and listen to an audio slide show on the two worlds in Afghanistan.)
The other U.S. supply route into Afghanistan – the independent states of ex-Soviet Central Asia – isn’t much more dependable. Kyrgyzstan, which leases us the Manas base that serves as a resupply hub for the Bagram air base, is teetering on the abyss. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said on Friday, June 25, that Kyrgyzstan is facing near certain disintegration. But that’s not the end of it. The Kyrgyz subcontractors who supply fuel to Manas are caught up in bribery scandals, which very well could lead to our losing access to Manas when a new government rises to power and decides to seriously investigate them. (Will violence in Kyrgyzstan draw in Russia and the U.S.?)
It is all the more ominous when this is put into historical context. The last general in landlocked Afghanistan to cede control of his logistics was William Elphinstone, who in January 1842 lost not only an army but also his life retreating across what should have been secure logistic lines. During the Soviet Union’s 1979-89 invasion of Afghanistan, apparently absorbing Elphinstone’s lesson, the Red Army made certain to provide its own troops to protect its supplies.
Another reason this congressional report is worth reading is that it gives us a glimmer of just how blind we are in Afghanistan. American military contracting officials haven’t met the Afghan warlords protecting our convoys because they don’t feel safe enough to get off base. Which leads to another question: If we know so little about the Afghans we outsource our supply lines to, supposedly our allies in the conflict, how much do we really know about the Taliban? When CIA Director Leon Panetta said on Sunday that a power-sharing arrangement with the Taliban is probably not going to work, he’s no doubt right. But it’s just good guesswork.
James and Cyrus,
On Glenn Greenwald’s scathing attack on Jeff Goldberg’s scathing attack on David Weigel:
If you still take seriously a writer like, say, Kenneth Pollack, who claims and receives some attention despite having got it all so wrong on Iraq, you can probably be cured with just a little therapy and proper medication. But if you still take someone like Jeff Goldberg seriously enough actually to examine and challenge what he has to say, as Glenn Greenwald did (though he did it well), you may be irredeemable.
Goldberg’s specialty is the ad hominem attack, as he made recently against David Weigel, several months ago against Flynt and Hillary Leverett, and many others before and in between. Writers with that M.O. often inspire strong reactions that mislead people to believe the writer’s views must be worthy of a strong reaction. In fact, it is only the ad hominem attack that inspires such passion. If one strips that away, often there is little left even worthy of consideration, much less a passionate reaction. Certainly that is true of Jeff Goldberg, at least for me. Try as I might, I can’t think of anything he’s ever written that’s stuck in my mind, other than the bitterness of his personal attacks.
Pak,
“Otherwise, I believe that it is most likely possibility one, with James’ previous post as my reasoning: “The story in The Times may have been planted to see what reaction arose.””
You and James may well be right. I initially reached the same conclusion, and haven’t abandoned it entirely. But Lippman’s specific statement that Obama had asked Abdullah this question during their 2009 meeting made me question my initial “plant” conclusion and consider other possibilities.
Irshad,
“I seriously do not see Jordan having an enrichment facility anytime soon.”
I don’t either.
I nevertheless feel the recent discussion of the possibility offers a convenient intellectual frame for comparing the West’s reaction to Jordan’s (real or imagined) enrichment plan with its reaction to Iran’s enrichment program. Why, exactly, does the NY Times think in-country enrichment is a great idea for Jordan, but not for Iran? Obviously many answers can and would be given, but it would be illuminating to spotlight and examine each answer closely to determine whether the distinction is valid or not.
Some distinctions will be valid, but I think most observers will conclude that few are. For a humorous example, consider this sentence from the NYT op-ed I cited yesterday: “What’s more, Jordan is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which explicitly allows participants to enrich uranium for peaceful power production.” Other “distinctions” are less humorous, but (many will conclude) no less invalid: “Jordan is a stable, pro-Western Arab country, which signed a peace agreement with Israel.”
And if, on the other hand, we were to find a distinction that appears to be valid – for example, a difference in the two countries’ willingness to disclose details of their nuclear programs – that finding may provide a convenient platform for considering whether (or not) changes in Iran’s behavior might make a difference in the West’s reaction to its enrichment program.
Oh Kooshy, you should know better. Iranians may know a thing or two about atoms, but they can’t think for themselves. According to this article this should be discounted even before it is presented, because usnews says so. Hype! Hype! Hype!
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/managing-your-healthcare/womens-health/articles/2010/06/28/test-to-predict-menopause-helpful-or-a-lot-of-hype-test-to-predict-menopause-helpful-or-hype.html
Iranian scientists (who were on a short lunch break before completing their newest Nuclear Bomb) say they have developed a simple blood test that will accurately predict when a woman will reach the menopause.
They will be presenting their evidence at a fertility conference in Rome today.
Dr Fahimeh Ramezani Tehrani,(a candidate for the next round of UNSC sanctions for her provoking and illegal research which in fact is aimed for A bomb) from the University of Medical Sciences(a cover up for an entity of IRGC) in Tehran, explains the findings.
James — the correct link to the Glen Greenwald piece on Goldberg is
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/27/goldberg/index.html/?source=newsletter
Another very good article:
http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/28/iran_and_the_end_of_deference
Fidel Castro expressed the view in Granma on Friday that a US/Israeli military attack on Iran is ‘imminent’. And he was not aware of the Azerbaijan factor; he spoke solely of the US carrier fleet in the Indian Ocean.
Jeff Goldberg was a leading media liar who helped to set up the insane invasion of Iraq. Golberg claimed Iran had poison gas and biological WMD available for use by Hezbollah against Israel.
Goldberg, of course, is doing his best to prevent a resolution of the Israel/Palestine problem and to facilitate further oppression of the Palestinians, and in pursuing this mission he demonises Iran continuously.
Glenn Greenwald demolishes one of the leading neocon war promoters/propagandists, Jeff Goldberg, on salon.com today: “The Jeffrey Goldberg Media”.
http://www.salon.com.news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/27/goldberg/index.html/?source=newsletter
Lysander,
The Saudis achieved a Fatah/Hamas unity government, and the foolish Bush administration conspired with Israel to subvert it.
Eric,
Obama should have been able to comprehend that making it easier for Israel to attack Iran was idiotic, and not a sensible way to pursue resolution of the Israel/Palestine problem.
Dear Eric,
You make some interesting points. If suspicions of who has the “real” power in the US are in fact true, then I would lean towards your third possibility. Otherwise, I believe that it is most likely possibility one, with James’ previous post as my reasoning:
“The story in The Times may have been planted to see what reaction arose.”
There is as much chance of Israel attacking Iran as is for Japan attacking China.
There is as much possibility of US attacking Iran, as is for the “supreme commander of International forces in Afghanistan and beyond” wining another good war
during this century.
It’s expected that the laser excitation methods now under development will be able to enrich uranium at about one-tenth the cost of using centrifuges. This will make it harder for existing nuclear suppliers to maintain a cartel on the supply of enriched uranium, but may also make it less urgent for countries that want to reduce their dependence on imports to do their own enrichment: why bother if the cost of enrichment is less than 1% of the total cost of nuclear electricity.
Abdullah is very unpopular in the Arab world. Nasrollah, Assad, Ismail Hanieh, Ahmadinejad, Erdoghan, Chavez, and Khaled Mashal are popular.
Eric,
Realistically, I dont see Jordan enriching uranium on Jordanian territory as its not a country that is developed or industrial enough to be able to do this. This is just a red herring, something the Jordanians probably are saying to win concessions from Western countries e.g. fund a nuclear power plant.
I seriously do not see Jordan having an enrichment facility anytime soon.
The cost of designing, bulding and maintaining one will be a major drain for their economy.
Anyway lets see what happens
Arnold,
A very interesting post indeed. Thanks.
Incidentally, Jordan’s bid to enrich uranium could be a useful platform for examining more closely the reasons why the US opposes enrichment by Iran but may (or may not) support enrichment by Jordan – what is the same, what is different, whether eliminating some of the differences might change US attitudes, etc.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/opinion/28beilin.html?hp
I do not myself believe that the Saudi rulers are militarily bothered by Iran’s nuclear program, since I think they know and accept that the program is indeed purely civil. Of course, they are always happy to be the recipients of US largesse, and the US is equally happy to promise them support for all sorts of civil nuclear programmes of their own.
I certainly think all the stories about Israel using Saudi airspace are false. I said so in a comment on a previous thread here yesterday, noting that the supposed story about Israeli use of Tabuk airfield in Fars News Agency does not exist, at least on their english-language web-site. These stories follow a repetitive pattern and have been around for years, usually transmitted via the same media channels.
My thoughts on a couple of things.
1) Abdullah’s popularity – maybe if you word the question in the right way, and carefully choose the alternatives, it is possible to get a result that Abdullah is popular in the Arab world. I saw a result that said that months ago. I personally do not believe it. If someone gets the link I’ll remind myself exactly why I found it unpersuasive. I think it was the type of poll that would be easy for people who are interested in the Middle East, surfing the web and finding a poll, but not necessarily from the country whose box they click to skew the results. I could be wrong, but that result goes against my impression.
2) Israel attacking Iran through Saudi Arabia. Israel is not going to attack Iran period. And pretty much everyone knows it. If Israel was to attack Iran, it would embroil the US, immediately in a full conflict with Iran, except that unlike the US, Israel has very limited ability to attack Iranian targets. So an Israeli attack would have all of the consequences of a US attack and one tenth of the benefits from the US perspective.
If the US feels Iran should be attacked, the US will attack Iran. Israel cannot attack Iran without US permission, and if it tried likely would just be shot out of the sky, maybe “by accident” because unidentified airplanes did not have the codes the US would have to give.
On the other hand, if the US told the Saudis to let Israel through, the Saudis would do it. The Saudis are not an independent agent in Middle East foreign policy. If the US told the Saudis to play along with some kind of intimidation game in which the US tries to create uncertainty about a US attack, the Saudis would do it.
That I think is the most likely situation we’re seeing. The US wants to keep the words “attack Iran” in the newspapers as a way to pressure Iran to make concessions on its nuclear program. It has been doing this for a long time now, but it has not been attacking. This story, that the White House asked and the Saudis gave permission for Israel to attack using Arabian airspace is quite possibly true, but not as a precursor to an attack but as an attempt to apply pressure on Iran.
Abdullah is about as independent from Obama as Egypt’s King Faisal, in 1950, was from Churchill (and Abdullah’s father was from Churchill and Roosevelt) which is to say not independent. Time does not magically dissolve colonial relationships. Vietnam was a colony, fought a war and is now independent. Much of India was ruled by nominally independent local rulers but at the luxury of the British. There was an event that changed that.
There has not been an event that broke Saudi Arabia, Jordan or most of the Arab states from colonialism. It persists to this day in the exact same form it existed 100 years ago. Exceptions are Egypt that was independent but restored to US control by Sadat, Syria that overthrew its colonial stooge dictator in a coup, Iraq which did the same, was reconquered by the US but with Syrian and Iranian assistance seems likely to fully throw off US control again shortly and Iran whose revolution in 1979 is well known to readers of this board.
If you think the colonial era over Saudi Arabia has ended, my question is when did it happen? I don’t think there is an answer to that.
The United States perpetuates the colonial relationships it inherited from Britain because Israel could not survive without it. This is very poorly understood in the United States. The US could buy oil from independent post-Saudi Arabia and Iran regardless of who is president. What the US needs in Saudi Arabia and also Iraq and what it wants in Iran is not direct control of oil revenue, but to be secure that oil revenues are not spent in a way that prevents the US from keeping its commitment that Israel have a dominant military advantage over its neighbors.
Israel is about 5 million Jewish people. The US is committed that these 5 million Jewish people be militarily dominant over the 60 million people of Egypt, the 70 million people of Iran, the 30 or so million people of Iraq, etc, etc, etc. It is not an easy commitment to maintain, and it would not be possible if Abdullah could be held to account by the people of Arabia.
The bow was symbolic and in a way sarcastic. It was part of an effort by Obama to make Abdullah more happy, more comfortable in a relationship where he serves indirectly at the luxury of Israel. Obama would not bow like that to Khamenei not because he respects Abdullah more, but a gesture like that would be so stupid and meaningless that it would make everyone witnessing it uncomfortable.
Here’s a quote from a guest poster at Juan Cole’s website a few years ago:
I recall when Prince Fahd bin Abdal Aziz called me to a meeting very late one evening in the early days of the 1973 war and asked me to send an urgent personal message from him to Richard Nixon informing the president that he had felt obliged to contribute a brigade of Saudi troops to the Golan front to support the Syrian offensive there, but that he had personally instructed the commander of the unit not to fire a single shot. That, Fahd told me with considerable emotion and obvious sincerity, was his solemn promise to his American friend.
Americans think this is normal. This is not how independent rulers act, but Americans do not think independence is normal. The US view of the Middle East starts with the proposal that anything 5 million Jewish people need to be true in order to be safe from any threat from the hundreds of millions of people in their region who do not consider their state legitimate and do not consider their claim on land as valid as that of the Palestinians must be true.
Pak,
“I was questioning whether Obama really asked the Saudis if Israel could use their airspace for an attack on Iran. It is quite unbelievable if he did, and indeed shows a level of naivete not expected from a man who promised to change the dynamics of the Middle East.”
Lippman did say Obama was poorly briefed before his first meeting with Abdullah. But Obama’s a smart guy and hasn’t been asleep for the past 40 years. How much briefing really was required on the wisdom of posing such a question to Abdullah?
I see three possibilities here, and the last two (especially the third) are troubling:
Possibility 1. Lippman just has this wrong – Obama did not ask Abdullah this question. Possible, but Lippman did not express any uncertainty about whether this happened, so I doubt that #1 is the answer.
Possibility 2. Obama didn’t understand how offensive this question would be, either because he was poorly briefed or he discounted his briefers’ advice, or a bit of both. Possible, more likely than #1, and disturbing if true because Obama and his briefers look nearly incompetent in this scenario. But I have my doubts about this #2, for the reasons given above.
Possibility 3. Obama was briefed well, and fully appreciated that such a question ordinarily might offend Abdullah, but Obama nevertheless had (or at least believed he had) some reason to expect that Abdullah might be more favorably disposed this time. I lean toward this #3, principally though not entirely because neither #1 nor #2 strikes me as persuasive.
If it was #3, the most likely reason for Obama’s optimism, I think, is that he promised Abdullah that the US would press the Israelis very hard on the two-state solution in exchange for carte blanche for Israel to attack Iran. The net result (or so Obama would argue): the US is happy, the Israelis are happy (Obama might not mention this to Abdullah, of course), and the Palestinians are happy. Only Iran is unhappy – but who cares about Iran? As for the Saudis themselves, they would briefly look bad for helping the US and Israel to attack another Moslem nation, but that tarnish would soon be replaced by the luster of having solved the IsraelPalestine problem after all these years. And, in the process, they would eliminate the real or imagined threat to Saudi Arabia posed by Iran’s nuclear program.
If possibility #3 is what happened and that was the deal Obama was offering, apparently it was not enough to persuade Abdullah – or it would have been enough except that he didn’t believe the US could and would deliver what it was promising.
But I doubt that Obama simply ran this up the flagpole for the first time last spring to see whether Abdullah would salute. I suspect instead that lower-level contacts between US and Saudi officials had given Obama reason to believe that the question would at least not be offensive to Abdullah and that, while Abdullah almost certainly wouldn’t say yes right then and there, he would at least start considering the possibility. The offer could then be tweaked, the US’ credibility could be enhanced with some positive steps on the Israel/Palestine issue, and then the question could be re-posed down the road – possibly with a more favorable answer from Abdullah.
I emphasize that this is just speculation, but it strikes me as plausible.
Abdullah’s relative popularity may be attributable to the poor quality of the competition. If most everyone voted against their own authoritarian, corrupt leader and voted for somebody else’s authoritarian, corrupt leader who they did not know all that much about, then Abdullah could come out on top. After all, he maintains the holy places and hosts the Hajz, which generates a lot of PR points.
If Obama has any sense, he will not mess things up too badly with Abdullah. Obama may understand the importance of not slighting Abdullah, since he reportedly changed his plans before going to Cairo and added a visit to Riyadh before the speech. However, Lippman is understandably not optimistic.
When I read such articles I do not know whether to laugh or to cry. If the Saudi monarchy was concerned with anything other than their own survival, we would see signs of it. It would not legitimize Mahmoud Abbas and the whole “peace process” charade. It could insist on Hamas-Fatah reconciliation based on popular Palestinian consensus. It could speak out against the blockade of Gaza in vigorous and unmistakable terms and use its diplomacy on Europeans to do the same. Most of all, it could offer Mubarak political cover for breaking the blockade himself. If that did not end the blockade, at the very least it would raise the price Israel (and Egypt) has to pay to maintain it. It could reconcile with Syria and even Iran. Along with Turkey, that would form an unbeatable block of nations that could end western dominance over the middle east.
But alas, there is no point in dreaming. What we have is a royal clique that manages “Saudi” Arabia on behalf of others. That said, I do not believe that the Saudis will assist any Israeli attack on Iran. Not because of any sense of honor, but because they fear a replay of the 2006 war on a grand scale and that they would be left holding the bag.
{but he may well not be the most respected leader in the Arab world.}
He is not respected at all. The Arab population hate him, the funny thing is that Obama BOW IN FRONT OF Abdullah.
The Arab head of states, due to their role as ZIONIST/IMPERIALIS SERVANTS has been damaged beyond repair. Thus, United States is directing Turkey to assume the ‘leadership’ of Sunni Arabs so they can be directed by Turkey against Iran. For this reason Turkey has been asked to steal Iran’s popularity among Arab population to have Arab masses on board for implimentation of vicious policy against people of the region.
People of the region already are familiar with this PLOT and can’t not be fooled by it. The Arabs, Turks, Iranians, Somalis, Afghani, Pakestani, Iraqi, Lebenese, Palestinians, Syrian, Sudenese, and the rest of the population are united against occupiers. You should get out of the region immediately.
John H,
I think I saw the poll you’re talking about, and if memory serves, it was one of those internet polls.
I’m not sure how popular Abdullah is, but he may well not be the most respected leader in the Arab world.
clarification: Abdullah’s endorsement of a settlement would be huge.
According to a recent poll, Abdullah is by far the Arab world’s most respected leader. Obama would do well to support his peace initiative, since Abdullah’s endorsement would be huge, and he is one of America’s few friends in the Arab world with much credibility at all.
Obama would also do well not to f**k with him by demanding he allow Israel to use Saudi air space, since that would make Abdullah’s credibility tank, besides creating the ensuing chaos piece mentioned.
The Saudis are quite right, that Obama’s effort to stop expansion of the illegal colonies was bungled. And who did the bungling? Hillary Clinton! She rushed to Israel to praise Netanyahu just as the latter was making clear Obama could suck rocks, as far as he was concerned. And Hillary received lavish praise in the foolish mainstream US news media, just as she bungled the matter!
paul,
I assume you are aware the Saudis told G W Bush that invading Iraq was a bad idea. They were pressured into allowing use of Saudi territory for the invasion, and in return Bush promised to keep the Sunni power structure intact to prevent civil war. The arrogant ignoramus destroyed the Iraqi army and security services, apparently without even knowing that was happening.
Pak,
You raise an interesting question. Did Obama in fact ask Abdullah to authorize Israeli use of Saudi airspace for an insane Israeli attack on Iran? Does anyone have more on this issue?
Zbigniew Brzezinski says the US should shoot down any Israeli planes trying to use Iraqi airspace for an attack on Iran. I agree wholeheartedly with Zbig on this.
Obama should endorse the Saudi peace plan, or accept it as much as he can and suggest how it needs to be tweaked to meet his approval. But the Palestinians should not be forced to negotiate directly with the Israelis.
Right. Because Saudi Arabia says they haven’t agreed to allow Israeli warplanes to fly over, then clearly they could ONLY be telling the truth. That kind of argument is not credible for one second. If Saudi Arabia didn’t want a war with Iran, they wouldn’t be hyping the war fever against Iran. Simple as that. Socalled experts can blow as much smoke as they want. If Saudi Arabia didn’t want war, they wouldn’t hype the supposed ‘threat’ that Iran isn’t.
Nearly every point in this article is a blatant and obvious joke. But what does one expect from a CFR, WAPO hack? Of course, as we all know, Saudi Arabia has been the country that has ‘meddled’ in Iraq, and Iran’s involvement in Iraq is inevitable considering that Iraq IS IRAN’S NEIGHBOR. But gee, maybe the folks in Saudi Arabia can’t read an atlas? No, if Saudi Arabia claims to be concerned about Iranian meddling in Iran, they are making this issue up for other reasons.
One can go on thus putting the lie to this hack’s claims.
Most likely, Saudi Arabia’s concern about Iran has to do with the fact that Saudi Arabia’s oilfields are largely in Shiite areas, reportedly, and Saudi Arabia is concerned that Iran’s growing prestige could make it more difficult for it to continue to oppress its Shiites.
But we just don’t talk reality in American foreign policy, do we, even the ‘alternapundit’ kind. Nope, we recycle the same lies and distortions over and over again, passing them back and forth like its a game of pong.
SHAME ON G20. LONG LIVE THE PROTESTORS AGAINST THE WAR CRIMINALS AT THE SUMMIT G20.
AMERICAN PEOPLE MUST LEARN AND GET OUT TO SHOW THAT THE WORLD IS FED UP WITH THESE WAR CRIMINALS. BRING THEM ALL DOWN INCLUDING FOLLISH RUSSIANS AND CHINESE. BOYCOTT CHENESE GOODS, IS NOTHING BUT GARBAGE ANYWAY.
http://www.euronews.net/2010/06/27/violent-anti-g20-summit-protests-in-canada/
Dear James,
I was questioning whether Obama really asked the Saudis if Israel could use their airspace for an attack on Iran. It is quite unbelievable if he did, and indeed shows a level of naivety not expected from a man who promised to change the dynamics of the Middle East.
Pak,
The Saudis confirmed they have not authorized Israel to use Saudi airspace to attack Iran. The story in The Times may have been planted to see what reaction arose.
The Saudis make many statements to the effect that the real problem, and threat to peace and stability in the Middle East, is Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.
I state again I am shocked that Obama would be so foolish as to ask the Saudis to allow Israel to use Saudi airspace for an attack on Iran. It reveals a serious deficiency on Obama’s part, in understanding the basic dynamics of the Middle East – - and where the main threat to peace lies.
Dear James,
Was it not determined that the Saudi airspace report was just another lie published by the London Times? As much as the Saudis may detest the Iranian regime, I think they realise that it would be political suicide to facilitate a US/Israeli attack on Iran.
Frankly, it is shocking, or should be, that Obama was so foolish as to ask King Abdullah to allow Israel to use Saudi airspace to attack Iran! Who is the idiot, or who are the idiots, who set up this act of utter stupidity on the part of the American president? Dennis Ross and Hillary Clinton?
Obama would be wise to endorse the call for a Middle East free of nukes (an other WMD). That this may annoy Israel is a reason to do it, rather than to the contrary.
One factor that contributed to bringing about the catastrophe in Iraq was the extreme incompetence of Bush’s national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice. She knew next to nothing about the Middle East, and in fact had little understanding of the Soviet aUnion – - her supposed area of expertise.
As Crown Prince, Abdullah obtained assurances that the Sunni power structure would be left intact after Saddam Hussein was overthrown, to prevent civil war. The arrogant fools in the Bush administration double-crossed Abdullah and brought about the vicious civil war.
I hope King Abdullah stresses to Obama that Israel must get out of the West Bank and the Golan Heights. And stay out.
Obama was directed by the Zionist stooges in name of ADVISORS, to BOW in fron of the most reactionary Arab ‘leader’, Abdullah, who is cooperating with the zionist mass murderers against Iran, Palestinians and Shiites and is active in Gaza blockade to benefit ISRAEL.
Obama and his zionist advisors must remember that world population never forget or forgive.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/04/023230.php
I’m always amused by this account of Saudi succession that Helena Cobban wrote once:
The Saudi king, Abdullah ibn Abdul-Aziz, will be 85 this August. His longstanding crown prince (and half-brother) Sultan ibn Abdul-Aziz, is 83, and was recently hospitalised for several weeks with suspected cancer.
The big question regarding the Saudi succession hangs over whether, and how, the kingship will ever be transferred from the numerous ageing brothers and half-brothers who stand in line after Crown Prince Sultan, to the “next generation” of princes – some of the more senior of whom are already nearing 70 years old.
Earlier this year, King Abdullah named his 76-year-old half-brother Naif ibn Abdul-Aziz as “second deputy prime minister”, a position that places him a likely – but not certain -second in line to throne after Sultan.
When King Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud, the founder of the modern Saudi state, died in 1953, he left some 37 sons from his 22 wives. Various of these sons have ruled the kingdom in turn since then.
Many of Abdul-Aziz’s sons had a dozen or more sons of their own. Saudi Arabia has no system of “primogeniture” (first-son succession.) Thus, there are hundreds of possible eventual claimants to the throne. Indeed, the youngest of Abdul-Aziz’s sons, Prince Muqrin, is, at 64, some years younger than several of the next-generation princes who now hope to become king.
There have been no reports that any possible successor monarchs might want to change a foreign policy stance that, since the 1930s, has aligned Saudi Arabia very closely with Washington. But among the country’s political elite, including its princes, there are many differing views on domestic affairs, including oil policies, economic policies, the role of the country’s powerful religious institutions, and the role of women.
Even as a work of fiction one could not invent a more backward political system than exists in the US neo-colony of Saudi Arabia. By design it does not produce effective leadership but it does produce local figures who understand regional customs and who inspire less rebellion and more loyalty than if Saudi Arabia was directly ruled by an American governor.
The SAUDIS want IRAN to stop supporting extremist groups? I’m confused. Is the author speaking about the Taliban or the Salafis/Wahhabbis in Iraq and Lebanon?
It feels like its 1810 and some supposed potentate is getting all dressed up to come visit his superior, King George in London.
They won’t talk about human rights or democracy because an independent Saudi Arabia, one accountable to the people who are ruled rather than to Washington DC would be substantially more threatening to Israel’s strategic position than Iran is.